Chapter Text
Prompts used for chapter 1: for the montlywritingchallenges on Tumblr, “Golden Hour” (July event): tangled thoughts.
STARING AT THE SUN
I. Framing: Prelude
In the shade of a willow tree
Squall Leonhart wants to photograph you. Personal project, no fees. He just asks for artistic freedom. It’s your call.
She read the message from Selphie again and again, wondering if it was a prank. Rinoa Heartilly, the singer, had stopped being sought out by photographers and magazines after her last annulled project; and Rinoa, the raven-haired girl who liked to play the piano and sing, like her mother did, wasn’t interesting enough to attract the attention of an artist as renowned as Squall Leonhart.
The internet had thoughts about him. He was emotionally reserved to an extreme level; he was quietly intense; he was known for his hauntingly intimate portraits of people’s fractures, pain bared through black-and-white light. He was an elusive genius whose work was coveted, even though he avoided the spotlight; his clients described the experience of being photographed by him as both beautiful and terrifying. The critics acclaimed his stark, minimal style that didn’t flatter but exposed rawness to the point it could feel voyeuristic to look, praised the approach that extracted truth. He was called the man who made silence speak for a reason, and she found it ironic that that was the nickname for someone so reserved.
There were rumors about the way he got to take those poignant portraits too, especially if the subjects were young women like herself; how he seduced them to get vulnerability, blurring the line between what was given and what was consumed to collect the pieces after the inevitable crash. He got his nickname Griever for that. His subjects vehemently denied he slept with them; as for him, he neither confirmed nor denied the rumor, simply leaned into it by wearing a custom-made ring with his logo – a proud lion roaring in what could be pain or triumph – and sharing his nickname with it. He didn’t seem particularly fazed by how predatory the rumor made him to be, and the most malignant ones stated that all he cared about was his art. The stunning pictures of fractures he derived his fame from.
She guessed that was why her friend and manager left the call to her, instead of handling it herself like she usually did.
But she didn’t understand: what did she have to give?
She was a dried-up musician, unable to convey what she wanted to say anymore; locked into the image of the girl bleeding light through her voice, as she was labeled, stuck into the lyrics that, according to her fans, could make people feel like falling in love and being heartbroken at the same time. She used to sing colors, wished to sing them again; what could a black-and-white photographer possibly want from her?
And yet, something in his invitation drew her in. The contradiction hidden in his natural reserve and in his incredible talent in stripping layers off his subjects was intriguing enough to make her consider. And the idea that such a man was interested in someone as ordinary as her flattered something in her bruised ego.
Tell him I’ll meet him at the café in the plaza, tomorrow afternoon at four.
Being a famous photographer sure had its perks, thought Squall, as he watched the busy life of Timber’s plaza from his secluded table on the top floor. He could get privacy when he needed it, for people always assumed he was in the middle of some artistic exploit when he asked for it. It was not good enough to make him forget that the same people could get nosey as hell, though, but it was a perk nonetheless.
It also allowed him to see her before she saw him, as she crossed the plaza. She was dressed inconspicuously, and yet she screamed see me at the top of those lungs she didn’t use to sing anymore. It made his skin crawl with anticipation.
One year had passed since her label contacted him to commission a photoshoot of Rinoa Heartilly, pianist and singer, daughter of Julia Heartilly, pianist and singer. She was pretty enough, they said, but her public image was all over the place; they wanted to rebrand her, go from her natural girl-next-door style to a darker, mysterious, sexy vibe. Fragile but fierce with a hint of a sex-kitten, they said. As long as it looked marketable. They had reduced her to a product and wanted him to create it.
She had canceled the new album before he could tell them he wasn’t there to shoot lies, but he was interested should they chose truth. He had considered reaching out to her to offer a private project, but his father had unexpectedly shown up again, along with his long-lost sister, and the fractures of his own life were too raw and festering for him to picture others’. Still, the haunted eyes he had noticed in one of Rinoa Heartilly’s smiling pictures had stayed with him.
And here he was, taking his first personal project after his sabbatical. For those haunted eyes and the truth they couldn’t conceal.
She disappeared through the café’s doors, and he braced himself; a few moments later, she entered the room, and the weight in the room shifted. White t-shirt, faded blue jeans, a hint of too-red lipstick, and dark circles under her eyes. “Squall Leonhart?”
A small voice. She didn’t sound like the voice that once bled light.
He nodded. She sat down. For a moment, neither spoke.
Then: “So, you want to photograph me?” She waited for him to nod. “Why?”
He didn’t reply. He reached into his portfolio and pulled out the file that the label had sent him the year before.
She swallowed; he noticed.
He opened the folder and pulled out the picture that had fascinated him so. “One year ago, I was contacted for a shoot. This woman was the subject.”
He was the first one to call her a woman. It settled a pleasant warmth she didn’t understand behind her ribs. “That’s me,” she said, feeling the weight of his gaze. It was enough to unsettle her.
“Is it?” he asked. It was so blunt that it bruised her. Nobody had ever considered, not even her, how true she was being to herself. The irreconcilable difference between who she was and who people wanted her to be had worn her down to the point she didn’t know herself anymore, effectively silencing her.
And this man had looked at a picture of her and seen it. It was electrifying. It was terrifying.
Not expecting a reply, he pulled out one of his shots. A middle-aged woman stared into the void, lips parted, a look of teary realization in her eyes.
“Do you see the difference?”
Rinoa swallowed, stealing a glance at him. His piercing blue eyes could be mistaken for cold; she guessed it was their color, or maybe the calmness they exuded. Or maybe the fact that she felt stripped bare by his stare.
“There are no colors,” she tried. “I love the colors in mine.”
He made a sound; she would have described it as derisive, but it felt more disillusioned than anything. “You’re a bad liar.”
A blush bloomed on her cheeks, for he was right.
He tapped his finger on his picture. “This woman lost her son in a car accident. She spent the entire photoshoot talking about him in the present tense. Then, one day, it became past tense. This is the moment she realized.”
Her throat closed in inexplicable sadness. “It’s hauntingly beautiful,” she said, cringing and regretting the cliché that online reviews often used to describe his shots. She knew he knew.
“It’s ugly,” he replied, following the light on the woman’s face. She didn’t expect such gentleness from him. “It’s not meant to be beautiful. It’s pain. The realization of definite loss. It’s extreme. You only think it’s beautiful because you can see how true it is.”
At a loss for words, she simply nodded. He kept watching her, moving his fingers on her picture. “There’s nothing true in here. The light is made to flatter you. Colors are studied. There’s styling. Make-up is used to mask. This is crafted.” He followed the line of her face on her picture, lingering just above her eyes. A shudder crept along her back. “These are not.”
“So you want to show me in extremes?”
“It’s not about the extremes. It’s about the thousands of greys in between. See the tension between the light and shadow? This edge here, where they blend? The chiaroscuro doesn’t hide. Shadows make the light mean something.”
She looked up. “So, why me? I am crafted, as you said.”
“But you don’t hide your shadows. I can do them justice.”
She scoffed. “Is this how you seduce your subjects? Playing all deep and mysterious to make them swoon all over you and then take your shots when they’re vulnerable?”
She came armed, then, he thought, but he was used to walls and protections. He said nothing, simply moved his finger over the light encasing the mind-shattering pain of realization he had captured. “I want honesty, Miss Heartilly. Don’t you?”
That’s what was making it so terrifying, she thought.
“Five shoots, the first and last in my studio. The other three, wherever you want. No artifice, no posing, no edits. Just you.”
“You still didn’t say why me,” she tried again.
He shrugged and tapped her picture again. “I can list everything they did to you here. I can promise I won’t do any of that.” He slid a business card over the table. “Come when you’re ready.”
She wanted to ask for what, but didn’t. She slipped the card into her pocket and rose. “I’ll reach out.”
At the door, she paused, a question burning on her lips. When she turned, he was looking at her through the camera lenses. The click was deafening.
“You didn’t ask!” she frowned.
“I never will.”